DALLAS - Garland Independent School District in suburban Dallas has decided to postpone a $400 million bond election until November, officials said.
Garland ISD board president Larry Glick said the district needed more time to prepare for what would be its largest bond election. A number of school districts in Texas have already scheduled bond elections for May 10.
For districts that want to call bond elections this November, the deadline is Aug. 18.
With 58,000 students, Garland ISD in the eastern suburbs of Dallas is one of the largest in Texas.
"I want to be able to say by the end of June, by the very latest, that we have come to a decision and we're ready to go," Glick told the Dallas Morning News.
District officials have received $473 million of proposals for school projects but have made no decision on what would be included in a bond referendum.
A consultant advised the board that a May 10 election could be challenging for the bond proposal and recommended waiting until the general election date in November, which would produce a larger voter turnout.
Last September, the board earmarked $8 million of the available fund balance for immediate facilities needs, despite fears that tapping the fund could threaten the district's underlying credit ratings of Aaa from Moody's Investors Service and AA from Standard & Poor's. Moody's has a negative outlook on the rating.
"The assignment of a negative outlook reflects the overall downward trend in taxable assessed values resulting in an average annual rate of decline for the past five fiscal years," Moody's analyst Nathan Phelps wrote in his June 24, 2013 report.
With a tax base of $13.3 billion, Garland ISD has $372 million of debt outstanding, according to Moody's.
